


Wanted:  One (1) Forever Home

by c0cunt



Series: BeruJean Week 2016 [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, House Hunting, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 02:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6266467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c0cunt/pseuds/c0cunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bertholdt should know better than to leave his phone on vibrate when there's a meeting.  Jean doesn't give half a shit that there was a meeting to begin with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wanted:  One (1) Forever Home

  It started sometime around noon, that Bertholdt’s phone started vibrating loudly against his ass almost nonstop in the middle of the goddamn meeting he was in.  His co-workers sitting on either side of him, Petra to his left and Mike on his right, pretended not to notice.  After ten minutes of this, it finally reached the point where his boss finally slammed down the report he was holding and snarled that they were going to take a ten minute break.  At which point Mike couldn’t stifle his snort, and Petra covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her giggles, as Bertholdt almost instantly scrambled to his feet and hurried out of the room, his phone instantly in his hand.  Of course, his phone had been bombarded with texts from Jean, who had apparently been spending his Friday off by going to every yard sale he could find.  The long line of texts was almost entirely full of incomprehensible screaming and exclamation points, accompanied by large blank boxes where photos should’ve been if Bertholdt’s phone would actually load the damn images.  Bertholdt couldn’t help shaking his head, attempting to figure out what had caused the longest string of texts, before his phone shrieked to life (nearly giving him a heart attack as he fumbled with it) as a call came through.  Bertholdt didn’t even have to check to see who it was as he answered it.

  “Jean, what are you even doing?  You know I was in the middle of a meeting, and Mr. Ackerman doesn’t put up wi-”  He started, only to be cut off.

  “Bertl, I’ve found it,”  Jean’s voice crackled breathlessly over the connection, immediately making Bertholdt’s mouth snap shut audibly at how both serious and excited Jean sounded.  

  “Are you sure?”  Bertholdt asked anxiously, pressing himself against the wall as Mike and Mr. Ackerman meandered past.  Mike grinned and gave Bertholdt a thumbs up as he passed, while Mr. Ackerman seemed to ignore his presence.  There was a crackling noise over the phone, which Bertholdt easily recognized as Jean nodding into the phone as he hummed.

  “Bertl, babe, it’s absolutely perfect.  Three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a small pool, and there’s two living rooms!  It’s exactly what we wanted!”  Jean whispered excitedly, and Bertholdt could easily picture Jean throwing his arms up and gesturing in the direction of each of those things in his excitement.  There was a small ruckus on Jean’s end, involving a few muffled apologies from Jean, and Bertholdt couldn’t help a small smile, even as he felt bad for the strangers that would be encountering an overzealous Jean.

  “How much are they asking for it?”  Bertholdt asked, his bitten-down thumbnail easily finding its way between his teeth, mentally running over their budget and trying to remember which bank had offered the best loan rates when he had looked into it a few weeks ago.  There was silence from Jean’s end, which just made Bertholdt more tense, before a defeated sigh blew into the phone.

  “Probably more than we can afford…” Jean mumbled, and Bertholdt sighed as well.  Three years after their tiny wedding, and they were still renting out Mama Bodt’s basement.  It was a very nice basement, but it wasn’t their own, and Jean had almost become obsessive with finding the most perfect house to finally call their own.  “The area’s  _ so good _ though, and the neighbors seem to be very nice, like Bodt family level nice…” Jean trailed off wistfully, and Bertholdt couldn’t help another small sigh.  Movement in the corner of his eye caught Bertholdt’s attention, and he turned to see Petra holding a coffee cup and waving at him.  When she got his attention, she grinned and held up the cup in a “for you” sort of gesture, and held up two fingers with a very exaggerated mouthing of the words “hurry up”.  Bertholdt held up one finger with a pleading look, and Petra blew her bangs out of her face as she turned back to the meeting room.

  “We’ll find the perfect place soon,”  Bertholdt said, though he sounded much more wistful than he had intended.  There had definitely been many places that could’ve been perfect in their long search, but the price was never right, or the sellers got cold feet, or some other equally shitty situation that ended with the house sold to not-them.  Another long, crackled sigh followed Bertholdt’s words, but he had to cut Jean off before he started.  “I wish I could keep talking with you, babe,” The word always felt strange in Bertholdt’s mouth, but the happy noise that Jean made whenever he said it was worth it, “But Mr. Ackerman’s going to neuter me if I’m not back in the meeting room within the next ten seconds.”  Jean’s cackling laugh exploded through the speaker, and Bertholdt grinned for a second around his now-bloody and chewed down thumbnail at the sound.

  “D-don’t let him do that, Bertie!  I’ll talk to you later, maybe I can get some info on the house or somethin’ while I’m still here…”  Jean trailed off, stifling small giggles as he spoke.  Bertholdt hummed in response, not even minding as much as usual that Jean had already hung up on him.  He quickly turned the phone to silent, before heading back to the meeting room, which was lacking Mr. Ackerman as well as Mike, but everyone else appeared to have returned already.  Petra smiled brightly at him as Bertholdt sat down once again, taking a sip of the coffee she’d placed in front of where he had been sitting.  He was surprised that it was actually good coffee, and not something from the gross cafeteria where he knew Petra always grabbed her break drinks from.

  “Think of that as a thank you gift for getting us all out of that boring spiel for a few minutes,” Rico said from across the table, tapping her pen against the table, as Petra hummed her agreement and dunked her teabag repeatedly.  It made sense that Rico would have something to do with the good coffee, since she somehow dug up the best coffee places around with very little effort.  Bertholdt was about to thank her and Petra, but was cut off before he could.

  “I assume that was the loverboy, eh?”  Petra asked, eyebrows wiggling.  Rico rolled her eyes, but Bertholdt noticed that she had tilted her head to show she was also listening to Bertholdt’s answer.  He nodded and hummed through another generous gulp of coffee, but that didn’t seem to satisfy either of the women’s curiosities.  “What got his panties in a twist?”  Petra prodded, leaning her chin into her hand.  Never before had Bertholdt been as thankful for Mr. Ackerman’s timing as he was then, their boss striding into the space and picking up exactly where he had left off earlier, some of the newer employees scrambling to take notes.

 

* * *

  
  


  Hours later, Bertholdt and Jean lay tangled together on their small mattress, flicking through the photos posted for the online listing of the house Jean had fallen for, having to wait a few minutes as their decrepit tablet took its sweet time to load each photo.  Jean had his face squished into Bertholdt’s shoulder, mumbling additional things he had noticed in the house during the estate sale, as Bertholdt swiped away.  They both sighed wistfully by the time they finished the slideshow, and Bertholdt couldn’t help but mumble “Reiner would definitely help us renovate…”  Jean hummed into Bertholdt’s neck, slapping the tablet that Bertholdt was holding down onto his stomach with an annoyed huff.

  “Wishful thinking will get us nowhere,” Jean groused, ungluing himself from Bertholdt’s side to burrow his way down into their pile of blankets and pillows.  Bertholdt hummed back at Jean, before he once again sat the tablet up so he could look at the listing again.  The sellers were asking $259,000, which was about fifty thousand more than they could really afford...Plus all of the carpeting had to be replaced, and the bathrooms were outdated...They plain couldn’t afford it, even if the sellers did decide that they could take such a lowball offer on their property.  Still, Bertholdt couldn’t help clicking the link to “email a friend” about it, typing in Reiner’s email and adding a small comment of ‘Jean is in love with this house, hopefully it stays on the market until we could afford it’.

  Bertholdt finally put the tablet down, quickly turning on the alarm clock on their bedside table and flipping their lamp off, before trying to get comfortable for sleep.  Jean had apparently wormed his way into the small space between their bed and the wall, which was only there because neither of them really had the energy to push it back against the wall again, and was snoring away quietly.  Bertholdt couldn’t help a small smile as he tucked extra blankets around Jean (he would probably wake up in the middle of the night, cold), and dropped a light kiss on the back of his exposed neck.  Jean grumbled in his sleep, something nonsensical about itching, but didn’t attempt to smack at Bertholdt, which was a victory in its own right.  Feeling accomplished, Bertholdt curled up facing away from Jean, tucking a pillow underneath his head for (hopefully) the night, half formed ideas about carpet removal and installation bleeding into his dreams.


End file.
